


when the full moon turns white (that's when i'll come home).

by katarama



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Werewolf, Anal Sex, BDSM, Bondage, Established Relationship, Full Moon, M/M, Werewolf Mates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-12
Updated: 2017-02-12
Packaged: 2018-09-23 17:04:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,375
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9667307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katarama/pseuds/katarama
Summary: Nursey hasn’t been a werewolf for all that long, and while he knows he can keep most things under wraps, he doesn’t even always trust himself.That’s what the rope is for, more than anything.  For his own peace of mind.





	

**Author's Note:**

> For the prompt: nurseydex + [It’s a full moon. I brought some rope and handcuffs to bring to bed tonight. (Beware the moon).](http://sleepy-skittles.tumblr.com/post/155287327552/50-a-softer-world-prompts)
> 
> I may or may not have used Teen Wolf-style werewolves. Whoops.

Freeze frame.

There are two boys sitting next to each other at a table.  

One is wearing a bomber jacket and a floral snapback, his dark, coarse hair curling around the strap.  His mouth is frozen around the word “chill” as he reaches for the napkin dispenser in the middle of the table.  His drink spilled.  The water has started to drip off the table and into his lap.  No one seems surprised by this.

The other boy does not seem surprised, but he does not seem very chill.  He’s grabbing for the napkins, too.  His hand is just shy of touching the other boy’s.  Just barely shy.  There is a now-damp textbook sitting on the table in front of him.  His plaid, flannel shirt is still dry, but not for long.  His face is red and his hair is orange, and if this were a cartoon, there would be a puff of steam shooting out of each ear.

Now guess.  

Which boy is the werewolf?

Time unfreezes.  Both boys cover the table in napkins.  The redhead rubs the water off the cover of his textbook and assesses the rest of the damage.  He will have to leave it out on the windowsill of his room, in the sun, to dry.  There have been worse spills.  There was no technology on the table this time, at least.

“Don’t tell me to chill, Nurse,” he grouses, more subdued.  His face is still red, but the steam has died down.

He is not the werewolf.

It’s the other boy, his hands still shaking as he tries in vain to dab at the water he couldn’t keep from dripping onto his jeans.  He isn’t any more coordinated than he was the day before he got the bite.  He’s a little bit less lean, a little more likely to damage something when he forgets his own strength.  He’s a little bit faster on his feet to clean up his messes.  

Mostly, though, he feels like he’s three steps away from shaking out of his body, especially on days like today, when the full moon is on the rise, when he can feel it itching under his skin and telling him to _shift_.

“You okay, bro?” a giant blonde boy asks from across the table.  “You look kinda pent up, you wanna skate that out?  I could use a rink bud tonight, Lardo snuck me the keys in exchange for dish washing duties for the weekend.”

The werewolf can’t tell him just how terrible of an idea that would be.  Can’t tell him how taking this out onto the ice is the worst imaginable plan, because he never knows what a full moon will look like.  He never knows whether it will be a rough time or not, because not all full moons are created equal.

Today, though, it’s an easy answer.  He already has plans, anyway.  

“Nah,” Nursey says.  “I’ll have to take a raincheck on that.  Dex and I are gonna get some work done for our calc. class tonight.  Thanks, though.”

“Just let me know,” the blonde says.  Nursey sees the concern in his eyes, and he almost wants to reassure him.  That this is normal, that he has nothing to be worried about.

He doesn’t know that he can really promise that, though, because for a lot of people, having a werewolf in the dorms on a full moon seems like something to be very, very worried about.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

“Sorry about the textbook,” Nursey says from the quiet of Dex’s room, his eyes on Dex’s windowsill.  There’s no one else there.  Dex’s roommates are usually out and about on Saturday nights, so they opted for his place.  Nursey’s around there often enough that his hypersensitive nose doesn’t smell threats, only smells the faintest whiff of Dex’s roommates underneath the mix of his scent and Dex’s, warm and sleepy and content and fond and annoyed.  

And turned on.  A fair amount of sex happens in that room.

“Sorry I flipped out,” Dex says.  Nursey accepts the apology.  Dex has a calendar on his wall with the phases of the moon, so he never forgets when the rough days are coming.  He does still sometimes forget how they affect Nursey, though.  He sometimes forgets that the days before the full moon always leave Nursey antsy, always leave him with every single sense on overdrive, touch sometimes feeling like sandpaper against his skin and sounds that are normally fine causing pounding headaches.  Food tastes different.  Things smell different.  

Dex smells different, in a way that’s a bit unnerving to Nursey.  Nursey’s alpha has thrown around the word mate a lot.  Nursey doesn’t give that thought a lot of credence.  He’s 19 and he’s just starting to get used to his impulse to grow claws and sideburns and flash fangs at people.  There’s only one thing he can handle at a time, and the idea that the way someone smells could somehow translate to his body chemically acknowledging that he wants to suck someone’s dick for the rest of his life seems fake.

It does still make him want to suck Dex’s dick, though.  A lot.  

“Make sure we grab the lube along with the rope tonight,” Nursey tells Dex.  Dex’s expression is measured, not matching the way Nursey can smell the rush of heat and want coming from Dex.  Nursey has had to learn to separate those, has had to learn that not every every flash of emotion and impulse means action, and that not every want translates to words.  

“You sure?” Dex asks.  “You seem kinda…”

“Yeah,” Nursey says.  He takes stock of himself again, the thrumming under his skin, and now that he actually thinks it through, now that he actually focuses on where the feeling is coming through, there is no rush of anger so hot it terrifies him, no rush of hunger for blood or teeth tearing flesh.  “I think it’s a horny buzzy full moon, not a violent buzzy one.”

Dex shakes his head, and there’s a small chirp about Nursey’s descriptive skills and his English degree in the making.  But Dex trusts Nursey to know, trusts him probably more than he should to understand where Nursey’s wolfier impulses are coming from.  Nursey hasn’t been a werewolf for all that long, and while he knows he can keep most things under wraps, he doesn’t even always trust himself.

That’s what the rope is for, more than anything.  For his own peace of mind.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Nursey was bitten at Andover by a guy on his hockey team.  Nursey had liked him before the bite, had thought he was hot.  He was closeted back then, and no one knew he liked boys.

No one except his alpha, that is.  His alpha didn’t like boys.  In hindsight, Nursey is glad, because he’s pretty sure it would’ve ended spectacularly badly if they had done anything together.  Nursey’s alpha was from a big pack in New Jersey, and he taught Nursey about anchors, taught him about the things that cannot stay hidden, the sun, the moon, and the truth.  Nursey didn’t know at the time where the words had come from, if they were just werewolf tradition, like his alpha had said, or if there was a deeper meaning.  He knows now that it apparently is a Buddhist mantra.  But Nursey got used to focusing on the words without their religious meaning, and he still turns there for guidance, when he needs something to ground him on nights of the full moon.  He knows the point of the words is something other than what he uses them for.  But he likes the way the words sound together, a sort of quiet little poem left for him to imbue with meaning.  At the beginning, working his way through the words and finding meaning was all that kept him calm.

The brightness of the sun that can’t be hidden for long behind clouds, the heat warming his skin until it looks more like his Mom’s.  The quiet light even in the early morning, the rays of the sun on the ice of a hockey rink as he skates his way through practice before his first class.  The coolness of the moon, the way it shines even in the darkness and shadows.  The way the moon is there even when there isn’t the light of the sun to reflect it, the way even the darkest new moons are temporary.  Before the bite, Nursey may have thought that the moon was a counterpoint to the sun, but after years of the moon drawing out everything Nursey feels inside his chest and leaving him rubbed raw, Nursey doesn’t think of it that way anymore.  The moon is the sun of the day, is the quiet whispers that sound louder in the stillness of night, is the things that should go unsaid under the cloak of darkness but never fade from where they rest beneath his skin.  

It’s the truth that is the counterpoint to both of them.  It’s the truth that always stuck with Nursey the most, was the truth that anchored him to where he needed to be.  The gentler truth of his feelings and harsher truth of their chance of reciprocation that kept him from getting swept away in his alpha, that kept him from losing sight of himself in his wanting.  The truth of who he is and what that means that keeps his anger tamped down and hidden by an additional “chill” or two.

It turned out that Nursey can be pretty good at masking emotions.  It turned out that that’s pretty useful as a werewolf, too.

It also turned out that positive emotions and positive associations make for better anchors than negative emotions, or the suppression of emotions.  Because when Nursey met Dex, when they finally dropped down from always being at each other’s throats, Nursey found his control coming easier.  It got even better when they started dating, and when Nursey told Dex everything.

Now, Nursey knows that his control is better than he acknowledges, especially when he spends the full moons with Dex.  Nursey knows that there’s nothing more grounding than Dex’s hand in his, or, even better, than Dex’s hands on his hips, his thighs.  Than Dex pulling out rope that’s softer and thinner than the ones Dex works with on a lobster boat, but that Dex ties just as expertly, looping knots that will come out if Nursey needs them to, a quiet sort of acknowledgment of Dex’s trust in Nursey even as he secures Nursey’s hands above his head.  Dex worried, the first time, about Nursey being tied up so long.  Nursey had to tell him about werewolf bodies, and the way that they always heal, and Dex still ties the rope looser than Nursey would like, but he leaves it as long as Nursey needs, at least.

Nursey feels perfectly grounded, even as his heart is beating fast, even as his sensitive skin feels the rub of the rope.  Nursey feels grounded in the way the sun fades, just for the night, and the way the moon rises, drawing out everything in his chest that had been boiling over throughout the day.  He feels perfectly grounded in the truth; that he is safe with Dex, Dex who loves him and trusts him just as much.  He feels grounded in the truth that there is safety in letting go, just a little.  In not being perfectly controlled, so long as he doesn’t resort to violence.  That he deserves a little time not having to fret about being outwardly chill enough.

He feels grounded in the way he can smell Dex’s arousal when the knots are all in place, and the way that, this time, Dex does act on it.  Dex gives it a while, talks to Nursey until the moon is at its height, checks in with Nursey to make sure he’s feeling okay.  But on Nursey’s way back down from the peak, on the way back down to normal, Nursey is also grounded by the press of Dex’s mouth, by the too-loud pop of the bottle of lube, by the stretch of Dex’s fingers inside him, the even bigger stretch of Dex’s cock.  Nursey’s past the point of touch feeling too much, and now he craves it, craves the feeling of Dex on top of him and fucking into him, just this side of too tender, just this side of too intent on taking in all of Nursey at once.  

When they’re both spent, Dex lays down next to Nursey, his eyes half-lidded from satisfaction and exhaustion.

“I think you’re good to untie me now,” Nursey says.  He’s about ready to fall asleep himself, the built up energy finally starting to subside enough that he feels like he _can_  sleep.  When Dex undoes the knots and rubs at Nursey’s wrists, Nursey is too tired to do much of anything, let alone run out into the wild and risk hurting someone.

“You okay?” Dex asks.  His touch lingers on Nursey’s wrists, and Nursey can smell his concern.

“Yeah,” Nursey says.  He’s too tired to muster up a reassuring smile.  He just wants to doze off with his boyfriend next to him, secure in the fact that his anchor is there to keep him in his head.  “I’m chill.”

Because Nursey is back there.  Nursey is back to blunt teeth and blunt nails and green eyes.  Nursey is back to measuring his feelings carefully and watching himself, carefully self-monitoring.  Nursey isn’t fighting the itching under his skin and the overwhelming push and pull of every single sense fighting him for attention. 

“You don’t have to be,” Dex says.  Nursey knows he means well, even though he doesn’t entirely understand.  Nursey knows that he’s adding on a _around me_  in his head that Nursey appreciates.  That Nursey even actually can agree with, more.  If there’s anyone Nursey doesn’t have to hide from, it’s Dex.

Tonight, though, Nursey is worn down and tired, and what he needs to do is repeat, “I’m chill.”

Dex sighs.  It’ll be a discussion for another day, though.  For tonight, he cuddles up around Nursey until his arm gets sore and Nursey dozes off.

**Author's Note:**

> On tumblr [here](https://polyamorousparson.tumblr.com/).


End file.
